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The U.S. economy created 120,000 jobs in November, according to the monthly survey of business payrolls. Unemployment fell to 8.6%, its lowest level in more than two and a half years, sayeth the Household survey. Good news, at least by the standards of an economy that seemed to be in a recessionary death spiral in late summer.

Drill down into the details, moreover, and today’s news is downright troubling. The lower jobless rate stemmed in large part from a decline in the size of the labor force. Some 315,000 people stopped looking for jobs last month, which usually denotes a lack of confidence.

Household Survey employment rose by 278,000 in November–more than twice the Payroll Survey figure. We estimate that foreign-born employment rose by 14,000–a gain of 0.06% from October. The number of native-born with jobs rose by 264,000 – a 0.22% increase.

November was one of those rare months over which native-born gained jobs at a faster clip than immigrants. As a result our New VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI), which compares employment growth of natives and immigrants during the Obama administration, declined slightly from the year-to-date peak reached last month. So slight it is barely perceptible in the NVDAWDI (yellow) trend line:

To calculate NVDAWDI, we set native-born and immigrant employment when President Obama assumed office [13] in January 2009 at 100 each. From that January through this November immigrant employment rose by 4.2%—pushing the immigrant employment index up to 104.2. Over the same period, native-born employment declined by 2.1%, putting the native employment index down to 97.9. We then take the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment indexes and multiply by 100.

Bottom line: NVDAWDI was 106.4 in November– or 100 times 104.2 divided by 97.9.

Our earlier method of estimating displacement, which we now call VDAWDI Classic, tracked Hispanic job growth as a proxy for immigrant employment. It confirms a November pause from the high rates of displacement experienced over the past decade:

In November 2011:

Total employment rose 278,000 (+0.20 percent)

non-Hispanic employment rose 323,000 (+0.23 percent)

Hispanic employment fell 45,000 (-0.22 percent)

Note that, overall, since the start of the recovery in June 2009, Hispanic employment has increased by nearly 950,000, or by 4.8%, while 404,000 fewer non-Hispanics have jobs—a decline of 0.3%.